Interviewee: Alice Mitchell

Date: 10-27-03

Tape # 18

Interviewer: Judy Mayfield

Place: Tulare
County, CA

Place of Interview: Alice Mitchell’s home

PLACES WHERE INTERVIEWEE LIVED DURING 1941-1946

Washington, D.C.

Georgia

Elderwood, California

OUTSTANDING POINTS IN THE INTERVIEW:

Life in Elderwood

Husband’s service in the military

JM: Today
I will be speaking with Alice Mitchell. Alice
has agreed to share her memories of the years 1941 through 1946 for the Tulare
County Library Oral History project, Years of Valor, Years of Hope, Tulare
County and the years 1941– 1946.

Today is Monday, October 27, 2003, and we’re at Alice
Mitchell’s home in Elderwood, California. Elderwood is a community about five miles
north of Woodlake.

JM: Alice,
would you start by telling where you born and how long you have lived in Tulare
County.

AM: I was born in Kentucky: in Salvisa, Kentucky in
August of 1913. When I was 11 years old
we moved to California. That was in 1924, which was 79 years ago, and
I have been in California, in TulareCounty ever
since. Her parents were Clyde and Verna Hawkins.

JM: About how old were you at the beginning of World
War II. Can we figure that out?

AM: I was 27.

JM: 27 years old. And at the time, were you married?

AM: Yes, we were married in April of 1941.

JM: So you were working?

AM: I was teaching school in Visalia at the CarrieBarnettSchool.

JM: Do you want to tell us a little about your
teaching experience? I thought that was
interesting what you told me about how many years you were allowed to teach and
how that was.

AM: Well, I taught three years in Elderwood when
I was first out of college, 1935 through 1938. Incidentally, I received $110 a month for 10 months. Then I was hired to teach in Visalia at the CarrieBarnettSchool and I
received $1,500 a year, which was quite a big jump in salary. I taught 4th and 5th grade for Elsie Crowley, who was a wonderful principal. At that time, they did not want to give
tenure to teachers, that is, if you taught three years. At the end of three years, Dr. Dwight
Montgomery, our superintendent, brought around a resignation paper for you to
sign, so that ended your teaching career in Visalia. And you weren’t supposed to get married
during that time. If you got married,
you couldn’t sign a contract, if you only taught one or two years. But teaching in Visalia was a
wonderful place. CarrieBarnettSchool was on the
north side of town. We had some
wonderful families there.

JM: Do any events stand out in the years
immediately preceding the war, some concern that stands out in your mind before
the
U.S.
got
into the war?

AM: Well, I can’t particularly think of anything
before the war, but I know about my fourth grade class in Visalia. I had
Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Portuguese and everyone got along very well. There was no antagonism at all. We tried to encourage them to be kind and
courteous to each other and they were. I
don’t remember anything particularly before,that was in 1942, wasn’t it?

JM: 1941. Do you remember where you were and how you heard about Pearl
Harbor begin attacked?

AM: Well, yes, because we were married by that
time and my husband and I had our mother out here for lunch on a Sunday, and we
heard the announcement about Pearl Harbor.

JM: And how did everyone feel at that time? Were you . . .

AM: Well, it was kind of a shock; my husband had
to sign up for the draft, so we knew eventually he would be called to go into
the service, which he did.

JM: So he was drafted?

AM: He left in May of 1942. Do you want to know where he went? He was sent over to Camp
Roberts where he had basic training
and then after basic training he was sent to Officer’s Training Camp at Fort
Benning,
Georgia
. I think they called them 90-day wonders. He was there and then he was stationed in Macon,
Georgia
at Camp
Wheeler. And that’s when I went back to be with him.
He was a Range Officer so he didn’t have to be at camp every night and was able
to come to town and after much searching we found a small apartment. There were lots of soldiers there, so housing
was difficult to find.

JM: Did he ever have to go overseas? Was he able to stay?

AM: No, we were there for about a year and he had
maneuvers in Louisiana and then
he was sent overseas, but we had some time together before then. I moved to Louisiana,
Natchitoches, Louisiana.
He had time off before he was sent overseas and we bought a car and drove up
through Kentucky and got to see
some of my relatives. Then we drove up
to Washington, D.C.,
where I had some friends who were staying there. They were all teachers. One of them was working in the Pentagon, one
was a Navy officer and one was with the Library of Congress. And they had a house there and they had extra
rooms, so I stayed there until Frank was shipped from Camp
Mead to overseas.

In the
meantime, one of the girl’s sisters came back and we went up to New
York and got to see the sights and enjoyed all of
that, of course. And then there was no
way you could get an airplane to come home, so I had to wait for a month or
more so I could get passage on a train to come home. I sold the car and part of my ration stamps,
because gas was rationed, as was sugar and shoes, meat. I came home in the late
summer and Frank was overseas.

JM: So then you came back to this area? This was where you lived?

AM: Yes, I came back and stayed with my mother, Verna Hawkins, instead of being at our
house alone.

JM: And she lived in the Elderwood area?

AM: No, she lived five miles west of Woodlake,
between Woodlake and Ivanhoe. That’s
where I stayed. And then Frank was
wounded a couple of times, first not too seriously. And then the second time he
was wounded very seriously with lots of shrapnel in his back and lungs and he
did spend Christmas in a hospital in Paris. But then he returned home in March of
’45. He was retired, medically retired
from the Army and then came home. After
being in the convalescent hospital in Palm Springs
for a couple of months, he was released and we came here to Elderwood and he
took care of the ranch. He was able to
do that.

JM: So he was in Europe during
the . . . .

AM: Yes. He was in combat.

JM: And so then, one of my questions that we
talked about was, were there changes in your family’s housing situation? Obviously, you moved in with your parents
while you were . . . .

AM: I lived with my mother while I was waiting
for my husband to come back. And then we
came back to this little house on the ranch.

JM: Did anyone else come in to live with you?

AM: No.

JM: Family members?

AM: One of the neighbors took care of the ranch
while Frank was gone.

JM: You mentioned that you remember
rationing. Do you want to talk a bit
more about that? Did you have problems
getting different kinds of foods, or clothing, that you can remember?

AM: Well, gas was rationed and I can’t remember
if tires were rationed or not and sugar was rationed. And meat and shoes were rationed and that was
a difficult thing. But it was nothing we
couldn’t live with. We seemed to manage
all right. There were observation posts
around, which were manned 24 hours a day, and I was on a team with two other
women and we worked over at the L.L. Richards Ranch which was just west of here
and you were to report any planes that came over.

JM: Were you worried about this happening? Were you fearful at the time? Or did it seem like something that wasn’t
going to . . .

AM: That’s been a long time ago and you do get
over those fears. Sure we were
concerned. We had a brother-in-law who
was overseas and some of our close friends were killed during the war and men
that we had known in the service were killed.

JM: Did your family do things? You said you volunteered to be watching for
the planes and such. How about Victory
Gardens, that type of thing?

AM: I don’t remember it. VictoryGardens, the
name is familiar, but I couldn’t tell you where there was a victory
garden. We had a garden; we had our own
garden and raised vegetables, being out on the ranch.

JM: Being out on a ranch you were more likely to
have something like that. You mentioned
that your husband was in the military. Were there other family members in the
military, serving during the war?

AM: Well, a brother-in-law did, Wes Brown, and he was overseas, in Europe. And of course many friends around were in
both theaters, both in Europe and in
the Philippines.

JM: You were working at the time, during the
time that the war started. Did you have
friends or know of other women who went to work as a result of the war? Taking the place of men who had gone
off? Did that happen around here very
much?

AM: Not that I know of. There was one gal from Woodlake who moved up
north and worked . . . I don’t know where she worked, whether it was in an
airplane . . . I really don’t know. I know
one person went up north. There may have
been others, but I just can’t recall right now.

JM: If the men were off in the service, that
would have affected women. They might
have gone off to work to help support the family. Wondering about childcare, was that a problem
during those years that you know of? Were there any changes in family life that
you might remember?

AM: Well, no, because our daughter, Janet (Livingston) was born in December of 1945,
so that was after.

JM: Do you remember blackouts? Collection drives? Things like that.

AM: I remember blackouts. When Frank was over in CampRoberts, I
would go over on the weekends and I would meet him on Friday afternoon and then
I had reserved a room in a little motel in Atascadero. You didn’t go over to the coast because there
were blackouts over there, but not in this area as I recall.

JM: But you can’t remember any around here? We talked a little bit about whether or not
you could remember if businesses or industries around here would have been
affected by the war. Could you think of
anything that would have affected businesses?

AM: Off hand I can’t think of anything, but I’m
sure businesses were affected. There is
something where we lived . . . packinghouses. Elderwood had packinghouses just
across, torn down now, where we shipped our oranges, but I think that one thing
that was interesting at that time and for a number of years was that the
oranges were wrapped individually in tissue paper, a little orange paper and they
were packed in wooden crates. Of course, that is long gone. Now they are in cardboard boxes.

JM: The people that worked in those
packinghouses, were they basically the same groups of people?

AM: They hired many local people to work in the
packinghouse.

JM: So you didn’t see a big impact on the
agriculture around here during the war?

AM: Not particularly. I couldn’t tell you what the prices
were. I don’t know how it affected them,
but I’m sure it must have had some affect on them.

JM: Other ethnic groups that lived in the
community,were there any problems during the war times? Did people get along fine?

AM: I believe everyone got along. The Japanese who were here who took care of
the ranch before Frank came down here to work on it were put into an internment
camp, but they were later released and have become very affluent people.

JM: Were they farmers or ranchers?

AM: They became ranchers and bought their own. They
were very good workers.

JM: In general, how do you think the community
reacted to the war? Was there a feeling
of patriotism and support for the soldiers?

AM: Oh, yes, I think there was. Of course the USO,even now they are asking
for support for the USOs, but we weren’t near a base and I think that makes a
difference. If you are near a military
base, I think it would make a difference in how you reacted and how you helped
out.

JM: But in general there was a feeling of
support for the troops?

AM: Oh yes. I think there was great moral support for the troops.

JM: How did you get news of the war? Your husband was over there; you must have
wanted to know what was going on?

AM: Of course we were glued to the radio all the
time. We did write. The Army let you know . . . when my husband
was wounded, I received a letter and then I got a couple of letters saying he
had improved and then when he was wounded very seriously, they let you know.

JM: Mainly you would have to get your news from
the radio, newspapers?

AM: Newspapers and radio.

JM: How did you feel about the dropping of the
atomic bomb when that took place?

AM: Well I suppose there were mixed emotions,a
feeling that this was going to end the war, to help us. But at the same time you couldn’t help but
have sympathy for people who were being bombed.

JM: In general, can you think of ways the war
affected you in your life, during that time? Of course, your husband was gone, but did it make any lasting
impressions?

AM: It did in him I know because he was never
without pain. He was not a person who
complained. It affected him physically,
but mentally and spiritually he was a wonderful person and he didn’t let things
like that get him down.

JM: How do you think the war affected Tulare
County? Do you think the war years changed Tulare
County or the people in the county?

AM: I really can’t say. It must have made them have a certain
patriotism for their country, an appreciation for what our men had done while
in the service.

JM: I know you have been thinking about this
interview. Is there anything you would
like to add? Little incidences you would
like to tell us that we haven’t talked about already? Is there any anecdote that you can remember
about that time?

AM: It was rather interesting that I and others
were given resignations to sign,after we had been teaching three years. After I had been in Georgia for a
year, I got a letter from them asking whether it was my patriotic duty to come
back and teach. That was rather amusing
in a way.

JM: Yes, especially after they practically
invited you to go.

AM: But Visalia was a
good place to teach.

JM: Can you think of any other patriotic things
that people did during that time? Can
you explain how Elderwood is? It’s a
farming community. Explain what
Elderwood is like.

AM: Well, Elderwood is five miles north of
Woodlake. There was a three room school
and it has always been a very good community. The school was sort of the hub. They had a very active PTA and people came and people knew each
other. It was a very friendly
community. One of the things the PTA had
was a chicken pie supper every year and people came from very far away to enjoy
their homemade chicken pie supper. I
remember that. Many things just drew
them together and they would have their own Halloween party thing for the kids
in the community and it has always been a good community. And the packinghouses here, many of the
people who lived in the area worked at a packinghouse.

JM: During the war years did those parties
continue?

AM: As far as I know they did. Yes.

JM: About how many people lived in this area?

AM: I couldn’t tell you, but there are more and
more people coming to this area. More of
the farms . . . Minnehaha was the biggest ranch north of here and it has been
broken up and sold in smaller parcels and people have moved in. The farmers right now, there are many acres
of oranges being taken up right now. What’s going to happen I don’t know. Agriculture is having a rough time right now.

JM: Mainly in this area are oranges and what
else?

AM: Oranges, olives
and cattle.

JM: And that was the same during the war years?

AM: Yes, only more oranges.

JM: Is there anything else you can think of
along that line?

AM: I can’t think of anything else, other than
Elderwood has been a very good place to live. I’ve been here for sixty one years in the same place.

JM: It’s a beautiful area out here. Looking right out you can see the
mountains. It’s very clear, a pretty
place to be.

AM: Yes, a pretty place to be.

JM: I would like to thank you very much for
participating in this Tulare County
project. We appreciate your time and I’m sure people will appreciate listening
to your tape and hearing some of your memories.

10-27-2003 Judy
Mayfield/JC/ed.JW 3/02/2006

Editor’s note: Words in italics were added during a
phone interview with Alice Mitchell’s daughter, Janet Livingston, on March
2, 2006. Alice died in January, 2005.